The intensification of the economic, financial and energy siege against Cuba — reaffirmed and expanded under the current U.S. administration — is producing a severe supply crisis and widespread blackouts that various analysts describe as an induced famine. After more than seven decades of embargo, the strategy of pressure appears aimed not only at isolating the Cuban government, but at forcing a structural collapse of the State through economic strangulation.
Cuba is not an offensive military power and does not possess military bases in third countries. It maintains no extraterritorial deployments and poses no conventional threat to the United States. Yet it remains subject to one of the longest-standing sanctions regimes in the contemporary international system. Paradoxically, there is a U.S. military base on Cuban soil: the naval base at Guantánamo, established in 1903 under a treaty whose legitimacy has been repeatedly questioned by Havana, which argues that it is maintained against the sovereign will of the Cuban people.
Historical background of the siege
The embargo formally began in 1962, following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and the island’s alignment with the Soviet Union. Over the decades, the sanctions regime evolved from a bilateral trade embargo into a system of extraterritorial sanctions. The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 codified the embargo into federal law, limiting the Executive’s ability to lift it without congressional approval and allowing lawsuits against foreign companies operating on properties nationalized after 1959.
Since then, the embargo has restricted trade, international financing, access to multilateral credit, technology transfer and transactions in U.S. dollars. Cuba has been forced to operate under severe limitations in the global financial system, facing penalties for banks and companies that maintain ties with the island.
At the United Nations General Assembly, for more than three consecutive decades, the vast majority of member states have voted in favor of resolutions calling for an end to the embargo. Although these resolutions are not binding, they reflect a broad international consensus critical of U.S. policy.
Inclusion on the list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism”
One of the most controversial elements has been Cuba’s reinstatement on the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. This designation entails additional financial restrictions, greater difficulty accessing credit and heightened risk for entities that maintain commercial relations with the island. The inclusion has not been accompanied by publicly available evidence of systematic Cuban support for international terrorist organizations in the classical sense of the term, which has generated questions regarding its legal foundation.
Energy siege and electrical crisis
The energy dimension is today one of the central axes of the crisis. Cuba depends heavily on fuel imports to sustain its electrical grid and transportation system. Sanctions affecting shipping companies and firms supplying oil to the island have drastically reduced fuel flows.
The Cuban electrical system, with aging infrastructure and limited alternative generation capacity, faces prolonged and widespread blackouts. These outages affect hospitals, food refrigeration, water pumping, transportation and industrial activity.
In a context of preexisting scarcity, blackouts aggravate food insecurity. Agricultural production requires fuel for machinery, transport and irrigation systems. Energy interruptions undermine cold chains and distribution of perishable goods.
Chronic shortages and structural vulnerability
Cuba carries structural limitations derived from its centralized economic model, low agricultural productivity and dependence on imports. However, the embargo has amplified these vulnerabilities by restricting access to markets, financing and supplies.
The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected tourism, one of the country’s main sources of foreign currency. The reduction in hard currency earnings complicated food and medicine imports. This was compounded by stricter financial restrictions and obstacles to remittance flows.
The combination of reduced external income, financial sanctions and energy siege has created a scenario of severe scarcity. International organizations and independent observers have reported deterioration in food security indicators, access to medicines and living conditions.
The political factor in Washington
U.S. policy toward Cuba cannot be understood without considering domestic political dynamics. The political weight of the Cuban exile community in Florida, particularly in Miami, has historically influenced the orientation of U.S. foreign policy toward Havana. Political figures linked to this electorate have consistently defended a hard-line approach.
The push to intensify sanctions responds to a strategic logic: to force political change on the island through economic asphyxiation. The implicit hypothesis is that the deterioration of material conditions will increase social discontent and precipitate internal transformation.
The central question is whether that political calculation adequately weighs the human cost.
Induced famine: legal and moral debate
To speak of “induced famine” is to make a grave accusation: that economic measures are designed or applied with knowledge that they will produce massive deprivation among the civilian population.
Sanctions do not formally block food or medicine. However, financial restrictions, the fear among banks and suppliers of secondary sanctions, and limited access to foreign currency complicate essential imports.
In international humanitarian law, the use of starvation as a method of coercion is subject to condemnation. Although the U.S. embargo does not formally take place within a classical armed conflict framework, the ethical debate centers on whether a prolonged economic pressure policy that directly impacts access to essential goods is compatible with contemporary humanitarian standards.
Guantánamo naval base: the sovereignty paradox
While Washington justifies its policy as a response to a threat or as a tool to promote political change, it maintains a military base in Guantánamo established in the early twentieth century under an agreement that Cuba considers invalid since 1959. The existence of that base symbolizes, for Havana, a historical asymmetry and a contradiction in the discourse on sovereignty.
Provisional conclusion
Cuba is currently facing an economic and energy crisis of extreme gravity. The combination of internal vulnerabilities, decline in external income and tightening sanctions has created a scenario of profound scarcity.
The debate is not whether the Cuban government bears internal responsibility for the economic situation. It does, as any government does. The central issue is whether a strategy of sustained pressure for more than seven decades, intensified in the present through financial and energy measures, constitutes a deliberate attempt at structural collapse.
If the objective is to “twist the arm” of a State through the systematic deterioration of its population’s living conditions, the question ceases to be purely geopolitical and becomes moral and legal. And it unfolds, indeed, in full view of the world.